Wednesday, January 07, 2009

With the 2009 coming on strong I've been busily updating family albums and organizing video files. Several years ago we made a family time capsule and while they're not an unusual thing to make we did things a little differently.

For our time capsule we collected pictures and tokens from each of us but we also did an audio record of our family.

We took a cassette recorder (obviously this dates us) and brought it around to various activities to capture on tape. These weren't fancy events, we taped everyday things that we normally don't bother recording on film or paper and it was fun.

Just recording children's cute little voices makes such a sweet souvenir--not only for a time capsule but for relatives far away. If this idea appeals to you here are some things you might record:

children telling their favorite joke

a favorite poem or short story

a song

dinner conversation

the conversation driving to school in the morning

a letter to a loved one

the headlines on the day's news

a list of "favorites"

Get them on tape (or rather on CD) and tuck it away. The only question is: what kind of recording devices will be in use 30 years down the road?

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Have you entered the Write-Away Contest this month? It's a new year and you could win oranges!

And congratulations to Lisa from Cameron, Texas and L from Fredericksburg, Virginia for winning the super huge NutriSystem Giveaway. I've still to hear from the third winner so I'll be redrawing a winner this morning. Stay tuned . . .

Sponsored by Tiny Prints--The place for the perfect holiday invitations.

This is a great idea and I really like the idea of preserving voices. Using tapes might have dated you, but they are the better choice for storage. Some CD-Rs only have a lifespan of 2-5 years. So in 30 years you might have a hard time tracking down a tape player, but the data will still probably exist.

This is a fun idea. We recorded out oldest at age 2...so sweet. Too bad we used a micro cassette at the time and now we don't have any way to play it. :) Ditto on the miles of vhs tape...and no vcr to play them on.

We did this once with my husband's podcast equipment (recorded the kids saying their "catch phrases"). Thanks for the reminder to do it again! My kids also love to make videos with the PhotoBooth application on the Mac. It's easy enough for them to do on their own so they are more spontaneous than if I were directing and filming them myself.

As far as the audio clip is concerned, if you record it on a cassette, you should keep a walkman in the time capsule (battery-free), or a CD player, or whatever. That way you can make sure to be able to play it back in however many years.

My mom used to send audio tapes to the grandparents to update them. I have some that were never sent and some that were made just for us. There is one of me singing my favorite song when I was 5 and I treasure it!